Imagine the PPD

[bissa]

3 of these and a 295 for video output.
what kind of numbers do you guys actually think that rig would get?

[El_Fiendo]

Unfortunately not much. If you could folding to work, as the clients require a monitor (or dummy plug) attached to the card, you'd probably get equivalent to what the mainstream version of the chip under the hood would get. For instance, I believe this is a GTX 280 or GTX 285. You'd most likely see PPD equivalent to one of those two cards. The reason, and I may be wrong, is that what seperates Teslas and Geforces is the BIOS / software it runs (reliability instead of FPS power) and the added memory, both of which have little effect on folding.

I was also looking at Teslas in a rig once, but soon nixed the idea realizing it wasn't cost effective. Unless you have a program that knows how to call on the benefits of a Tesla, you won't see any performance gains. Unfortunately the [email protected] console falls in this category. Though that would be pretty awesome to have a Cray CX1 loaded to the gills with GPUs.

[bissa]

damn, what would be the best folding setup if cost was no issue?

[CMetaphor]

4x GTX285 Classifieds with the new x58 classified mobo from eVGA? Or 4x GTX295's in the same board.

[El_Fiendo]

Hmm, well I'd imagine something along the lines of:

1 Tyan dual 1366 motherboard
2 Intel i7 (i9) or equivalent Xeons (make sure to get hyperthreading!)
As many GTX 295s / GTX 285s as you can fit on the motherboard. The motherboards should all have 4 PCI-E slots now, spaced just right so you should be good. I say GTX 285s as some people can't get GTX 295s to fold on all available cores. Usually I've seen 3 cores folding with the 4th core throwing errors. This looks like drivers more than anything though.

With the 2 x i7 / i7 Xeon equivalents, you'd be working with 8 cores physical, 8 cores virtual. While it wouldn't be as capable as a full 16 cores, it does its fair share of work. With 2 x i9 / i9 Xeon equivalents, you'd be dealing with 12 physical cores, 12 virtual cores. 24 cores(*) total. Again, not as powerful as a full 24 cores, but damn faster than just 12. Using VM Ware clients and the Notfred's diskless folding, you'd get ~9000 PPD per i7 alone. So, probably around 16-18k PPD for 2 i7s, + video cards extra. I can only speculate at i9, but if we assume that it scales linearly, then ~13500 per chip, so 25-27k total on processors alone. Then with added GPU power. If you used 4 x GTX 285s, they'd produce ~30000k PPD total I'd say. 26-31k would be the range, plus the CPU PPD. You could look at anywhere from 44000 on the low end (i7s and GTX 285s) up to a theoretical 57-60k. What you'd actually get would be -10% or so for real world values, and + or - some for overclocking. But a very sexy single rig it would be.


Some guys on here have actual 16 core rigs, one being Behemoth. From what I understand, they do pretty beautifully themselves, though I'm not up on what the downside is on 16 physical cores vs my solution of 8 physical / 8 virtual. I assume that pretty soon there would be quad banger (4 CPU 1366 motherboards), simply because it has to happen eventually so that may well be a dream option as well. 24 physical cores with i9, 48 total including virtual cores.


On that note, what's the limit of cores that Windows can recognize? Linux?

[bissa]

ya, but then you would need some PSUs outside of the case to have enough plugs to support that.
EDIT: for metaphors idea.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by bissa

damn, what would be the best folding setup if cost was no issue?

GTX295s. There is also a limitation to how many GPUs you can have running in a single system, so trying to cram a lot of low-PPD cards into a single rig isn't a good approach. The GTX295 is the most effective way of getting a lot of PPD into a single machine.

[bissa]

once I get a job as a network admin set up [email protected] on all the workstations running 50% so it is not noticeable and you would have one hell of a server farm (of types)
EDIT: what does affect how well a GPU can fold?

[Sushi Warrior]

The new Classified 4x SLI mobo with 7 GTX295's with waterblocks and single slot brackets? Or does the mobo not support that many GPU's? Rather have 7 295's over another processor.

[El_Fiendo]

I think there is a limit of 4 GPUs. I'm not sure if this is Windows or Forceware drivers (or even a hardware issue). It's not an SLI issue (as in SLI will work up to x4 but you can have more graphics cards un-SLI'd), I think more along the lines of actual GPU recognition past 4 of them. I'm probably wrong though. Anyways, I've never seen anyone run 4 GTX 295s without at least 1 core giving them an issue, so I'd personally stick to GTX 285s.